Friday, December 12, 2008

No charges for RCMP who killed Dziekanski

The Star : "The Mounties involved in Polish immigrant Robert Dziekanski's death at Vancouver's airport last year will not face any criminal charges.When RCMP responded to a disturbance call about Dziekanski, four officers confronted the unarmed Polish man and less than a minute into the encounter, a Taser gun was used, jolting Dziekanski, who fell screaming to the ground. Video, captured by a bystander, shows officers piling onto Dziekanski. He died within minutes."

Without Paul Pritchard's ugly and incriminating 10 minute video of the whole event and his threat of legal action against the RCMP to get it back from them, we wouldn't even know what happened because prior to its release the official RCMP story was that there were only two cops and perhaps Dziekanski was a "drug mule" or had "an underlying medical condition".And then there were the internal documents between the Canadian Border Services Agency, the RCMP, and airport officials on their own security tapes of the incident : "The material has been cleansed too much," read one.

BC's Attorney General will be explaining this exciting new legal precedent at a press conference later today : If a gang of four thugs attacks someone without cause, drops them to the ground and leans on their neck and chest until they are dead - no worries.

As to CBC's recent report that "four out of 41 guns tested actually discharged more electrical current than Taser International says is possible."Well good on ya for this, CBC, but this isn't exactly news, is it?"In 2004 Robert Bagnell was killed almost instantly after being shocked by a Vancouver police Taser."Engineering firm Intertek tested the two weapons fired during the Bagnell incident. Their research found while one Taser performed within a normal electrical output, the other was 30 times higher.Taser International, a U.S. stun gun manufacturer, later disputed Intertek's test results. Since then, the two Bagnell Tasers were sent to the Canadian Police Research Centre in Ottawa for further examination. That was two years ago.Victoria Const. Mike Massine, considered one of Canada's foremost police experts on stun guns, says Tasers are not tested by police. "I'm assuming (Tasers) are tested at the factory," he said. "We don't have the mechanism to do that."

Dr. Dawg : WHITEWASH :"It's time to disband this "horribly broken" outfit. And it's time to break up the cosy little cliques that have developed between police and Crown attorneys. Lives may well depend upon it.Until this happens, no one is safe from the bully boys in red serge. No one. There are no checks and balances, there is no accountability. The RCMP is literally out of control. Its officers are, unlike the rest of us, above--or outside--the law."

How many cases like this go unnoticed because of the haphazard availability of amateur video evidence? The world will change in unfathomable ways when everything is recorded... mostly bad, but recklessness like this will be caught more often.

I found a guy passed out drunk on the side of the road. I got the RCMP to help and they tasered him. I now consider it dangerous to get the RCMP involved in any situation. Things are better handled by private citizens.

Bob : Before you emigrated here, there was a secret meeting of SPP leaders in Banff. Chris Foote, commenting just above you, covered it in the local Banff paper - his was the only media coverage there was of it for days until CBC finally gave it a belated bit of notice.